AN ORANGE FORD

Where does this come from, this idea arriving on a wintery night, of doing night photography? It's cold. All my photos are taken with available light.

Earlier, oblique shadows had fallen at sunset. Perhaps after that I'll get ghost images? Black on black. The challenge is curious in itself. Surely the Muse must realize how absurd this seems.

We'll find a workaround.

We go to the store. Stuff is on the shelves. A sign on the counter says: Out to Lunch. And a scribbled note taped on: “Inventory in progress.” Because it would take so long, I guess.

Yes, the bins had been stuffed last time, though countable. Though keeping the surge of information within bounds had been hanging on a patient thread. Gradually however, almost imperceptibly, it came down that there's no failure like success, and success is no failure at all. The accountant's trip encountered a bridge too far.

In retrospect, the old way was keeping the store tidy, not showing everything at once. Used to be that you could order a Ford in any color you liked, so long as it was black. Now dealerships display models in showrooms, and with each a slate of colors. Pick your model. Then choose your color. What sort of upholstery? A play station for the back seat? For both back seats? SIRI navigation?

We have, it would seem, outdone ourselves. Proliferation now vies with patience. In fact, any consortium of Artificially Intelligent machines, even in possession of all available data, could not be held accountable. And no one's god is to be blamed; any choice would be impossible to defend.

Fate! Ah, but that's the god choice topsy turvy.

So then, no one's responsible . . .

Well then, if individually we are not, collectively we obviously are. Each of us is a storehouse of our experiences and thoughts, kept for a lifetime, and by the collective mind, unbound by individual existences. You can order an orange Ford, and you are responsible for that choice. It is stored with your mind, and with the collective mind. Each new choice is informed by what is held in the store house or collective consciousness, bringing all factors, actively remembered or not into play.

An available light photographer at midnight captures oblique shadows, through a lens darkly, with the dust cap off.